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Category Archives: #WishIHadAPhotoWednesday

Baboons are highly intelligent, living in well-ordered social groups, and watching a wild troop can be a real pleasure. But a troop of baboons habituated to people can be a disaster for all concerned. In many of the communal national park campsites in northern Botswana, baboons are a fact of life – not a pleasant one. They will steal from your camp if you leave it unguarded, and once they even left a smelly package in the middle of the bed in an empty rooftop tent!

Having a slingshot (catapault) handy can be a good deterrent, but sometimes even that backfires. I remember 1 occasion when we were camping with friends in North Gate, Moremi, and baboons had been skirting camp all day, looking for an opportunity to sneak in and grab something. 1 of our friends had a slingshot and when he held it in the air, the baboons vanished instantly. He didn’t even have to use it. However, revenge is best served cold, and when we returned from our afternoon drive (having left our tents open and empty so there would be nothing of interest for the baboons) our tent was flat on the floor. Apparently the baboons had been leaping from the trees onto the top of our tent until they broke the poles, no doubt pleased with their day’s activities, they abandoned our destroyed camp!
Baboons 1. People 0.

Braai (BBQ). Full moon. Lunar eclipse. Genet. Yes, I’m about to write a post that contains them all!

The scene is Matopos, in Zimbabwe. We are having a lovely braai over an open fire and have just finished cooking our meat. The full moon is incredibly bright, but then a small, strange cloud passes over one corner of it. My binoculars are still round my neck, so I take a look and realize this perfect circle covering the edge of the moon is no cloud. Its getting darker; stars are starting to appear; the milky way covers the sky; instead of a world full of sharp contrast and moon shadows, we are sitting in a strange gloom, with a halo of pale light visible behind the moon. A full lunar eclipse!

Matopos, Zimbabwe photo by Alison Nicholls

While we are discussing the unexpected eclipse, we hear munching nearby. In the darkness we can just make out the beautifully spotted and striped coat of a genet who, while we were distracted, had helped himself to a piece of meat from the braai. Even though we were surrounded by fallen leaves, he seemed to be able to move in almost utter silence – only the white of his coat gave him away.

Slowly, the night sky brightened again as the ‘cloud’ disappeared from the face of the moon; the milky way receeded; stars popped out 1 by 1; and we were back to the brightly lit jumble of boulders and crooked trees that is Matopos. We looked around for our guest the genet, and he too had gone, almost as if he’d never been there. But there were a couple of pieces of meat missing from the braai, so we knew we hadn’t imagined the whole magical event!

When you think of a giraffe you think of elegance and that long graceful strides – even when giraffes run they look like they are moving in flowing slow motion. But one day in Hwange National Park in northern Zimbabwe, I saw a different side to giraffes.

2 female giraffes arrived at a waterhole, each with a very young calf in tow. After a few moments looking at each other, the 2 calves realized this was an opportunity not to be missed and immediately set off on a ridiculous romp; chasing each other around a tree; stopping; setting off again; obviously having the best time of their lives. Their mothers looked on in something approaching disgust and decided it was time to leave. The calves paid no attention at first, but as their mothers headed off in different directions, they realized their game had come to an end. Reluctantly they went their separate ways, no doubt to resume their training to become stately, graceful giraffes!

Oryx. Oryx gazella. Known as Gemsbok (pronounced hemsbok) in southern Africa. It could even be the origin of the unicorn myth… This stunning antelope is a true desert dweller often seeming to survive on virtually nothing at all, and not needing to drink, although they will if water is available.

One evening I was standing beside our Toyota Hilux on the edge of a salt pan in Khutse game reserve in Botswana (probably with a hunters dry in my hand) when I noticed a commotion on the other side of the pan. It turned out to be 2 male gemsbok chasing each other, completely oblivious to what was going on around them, concentrating only on each other. They were galloping straight at us and as they got closer and closer to us, I remember inching closer and closer to the vehicle, wondering if we were about to be rammed headon. But at the last moment the lead gemsbok seemed to see us and swerved away, passing parallel to our vehicle, closely followed by his pursuer.

Most antelope are graceful and elegant, many are beautifully marked, but what is easy to forget with antelope is that despite their looks, they are built tough; built to survive predators, rough terrain & drought. And when you see a gemsbok galloping past you, you are suddenly aware of the power and strength of this pony-sized antelope. You realize it is far more than a dramatically marked, scimitar horned beauty.

It was night and we were driving into one of the world’s oldest dune fields. We were heading towards Sossusvlei, so we could climb a dune and watch the sun rise. But it felt like we had left Earth behind and driven straight into a landscape from some alien planet.

We were the only vehicle on the dark road; mysterious, undulating shapes of endless dunes surrounded us; on both sides long, eerie fingers of sand reached out to catch hold of us; and straight ahead was an impossibly huge moon, apparently setting directly onto the road. It was beautiful, amazing and unsettling all at the same time. I would not have been surprised if an alien space-craft had suddenly appeared and cruised alongside us. I wouldn’t have been surprised if we started spotting 8 foot long ants or gigantic monster lizards. It was that kind of night. Utterly amazing. A little scary. And yet we drove on, straight towards the orb of the moon. And didn’t take a single photo!!!

After negotiating a maze of sandy tracks, we arrived at our destination, and start climbing up the ridge in the cold of pre-dawn. When we got to a plateau we stopped, but I was shivering so much I couldn’t sketch. The first warm rays of the sun were very welcome, but I didn’t really warm up until I ran down the steep side of the dune and finished a cup of hot tea!

Sossusvlei, Namibia, is in the Namib-Naukluft Park. It is approximately halfway between the coastal towns of Lüderitz and Walvis Bay, which on the map are about 400kms apart. But there are no direct roads between these towns thanks to the dune fields of the Namib Desert, so the average driving distance is more like 800km, as you skirt inland. Half way along, you take a turn west and find Sesriem (where you can camp). Sossusvlei is the deepest area in the dunes that you can drive to. Directly west from there the dunes stretch another 50kms to the cold breakers of the Atlantic Ocean. The only way to see this piece of coast is by boat or by plane. If you want to go to a place where the landscape makes you feel truly tiny and insignificant, you won’t find many places that rank alongside Namibia!
Until next time… . . . .
Alison

For this #WishIHadAPhotoWednesday, I thought I’d go back to one warm evening in the Okavango Delta, Botswana. I was with my husband and my parents; we had set up camp, with our guides from Gunn’s Camp, on the edge of a large island. We had arrived by mokoro (dug-out canoe), seeing delta life from a lower angle than usual, as our guides poled us through the clear waters, past lilies and papyrus. Night was falling fast and the fire was alight, throwing shadows onto our 3 small dome tents. We were getting settled in for the evening (most likely with a sundowner in hand) when suddenly it seemed that our small camp came alive with activity for a brief second. 3 shapes leapt between the tents. It was almost too dark to see them, but the smaller 2 at the back had distinct white tips to their tails – African wild dogs chasing an impala! Before we had time to react, they were gone.

I’ll always remember the silence of the hunt. There were just the sounds of a few fleeting footfalls. There were no cries or calls of any kind. We listened, to hear what might have happened to the impala. Did she escape?
But the darkness closed around us, leaving us guessing, and grinning at our amazing experience.

It was late afternoon; we were approaching our campsite in Mabuasehube, in the south-west of Botswana; and a beautiful dark-maned lion was in the grass 200 yards from our campsite. As we put up our tents we kept an eye out for him, knowing that lions can be curious; but it was too hot for him to move. We knew that once the sun set, he was almost certainly going to walk along the sandy track straight through our camp, so before it got dark we moved our truck so it faced down the track towards him, hoping to keep him in view by the light of the headlights as he passed by. Sure enough, he started his deep guttural roars and gradually they got closer and louder. Eventually we knew he was just on the edge of camp, so we moved from our chairs by the fire and stood next to the vehicle. We had been in a situation like this before, but on that occasion we had retreated to our vehicle when we saw the lions; this time we hoped to hold our nerve and watch him walk by without feeling the need to hop in the vehicle. This may sound like complete craziness, but we had spent nearly 10 years living in Botswana and Zimbabwe by this stage and we had had so many encounters with wild lions in national parks and game reserves that we knew the way they normally react – sometimes curious, but definitely not seeing us as a menu item – if they did, camping in the Kalahari would not have been so high on our list of things to do!

Mabuasehube, Botswana – photo by Alison Nicholls 2002

The lion continues to come closer, completely unfazed by the headlights of our vehicle (lions are not fazed by many things), deviating for a minute to mark his territory next to our long drop toilet (appropriately), before padding straight towards us again. When he was about 10 feet in front of the vehicle we unfortunately lost our nerve and decided it was time to get in. Four of us tried to get in 2 doors (survival of the fittest) but after a little excited banter, we were all in the truck. The lion didn’t even look in our direction and continued on his magnificent parade. Once we were sure he was gone, we headed back to our chairs by the fire for a large gin & tonic!

About 20 minutes later he obviously reached the other campsite located further along the edge of the salt pan, because suddenly we saw flashlights piercing the darkness in all directions, coming together to silhouette a nonchalant big cat padding through the darkness. Experiences like this, in a true wilderness, are some of my most valued memories…

And, you guessed it, we didn’t manage to take a single photo!

Any more #WishIHadAPhotoWednesday stories out there?
Alison
www.ArtInspiredbyAfrica.com

Why is it that when you go into the African bush with people who haven’t been there before, you always see amazing things, and your visitors go home thinking these thing happen every day. This has happened to me so many times I’ve lost count. One example was a visit from a brown hyena in the Kalahari.

We were camping, with 2 visiting friends, in Khutse Game Reserve, at the well known campsite with the lovely camelthorn acacia. It was dark and we had abandoned our chairs near the embers of the fire and we were getting ready to go to bed. We heard something in the bushes on the edge of camp, got our torch (flashlight) and saw eyes. We decided it was a brown hyena but assured our friends that it wouldn’t come any closer until we were in our tents. Wrong!

It casually walked out of the bushes, straight up to our circle of chairs and started sniffing around the fire. If you’ve seen a brown hyena close up, you’ll know they are a very strange looking beast – something like a cross between a spotted hyena and a very long-haired German Shepherd (of the American variety, with the sloping hindquarters). I had seen brown hyenas before but never one so bold and never this close. After a few moments watching it, we decided we should scare it away – to ensure it had some fear of humans and didn’t become some kind of bizarre campsite scavenger (with jaws you don’t want anywhere near your campsite!). We thought this would be fairly easy – just a few shouts required, surely? Wrong again. The hyena completely ignored us. Eventually, after more unimpressive noise-making attempts, we beeped the car horn and the hyena casually wandered off without a look back. And yes, you guessed it, during the entire encounter the 4 of us completely forgot to try and take a photo!

I’d like to invite all you wildlife lovers out there to join me in celebrating #WishIHadAPhotoWednesday – a chance to tell all those bush stories for which you have no photographic evidence. I’m not talking tall tales here – just things you’ve seen that stand out in your memory. I have made a long, long list, and I’ll start you off with a short, simple tale that involves Africa’s biggest antelope.

Eland bull, Mashatu Game Reserve, Botswana

I was sitting on the roof-rack of our Toyota Hilux truck (nicely padded with our sleeping mats) in Khutse Game Reserve in Botswana, while my husband drove us back to our campsite. Khutse is in the Kalahari, which is pretty flat, so sitting on the roof of a truck makes you feel like you can see for miles. The tracks are mostly sandy but turn into solid white calcrete, as you cross the occasional salt pans. Scrubby brush, generally no more than 5′ tall, is surrounded by long grasses. As I said, it seems like you can see for miles, but its amazing what can be hiding on those empty looking salt pans and in that scrubby brush. As we wound round a bend, 3 huge eland bulls appeared, trotting fast. These are the biggest antelope (a large male can rival the weight of a bull bison) and in many respects they look like a cross between an antelope and a cow. Our paths were intersecting, and as we slowed down the eland speeded up. They approached the track (just wide enough for 1 vehicle) and leapt it like star show-jumpers. I had this amazing view of 3 massive eland leaping higher than the bonnet (hood) of our truck, so they were nearly level with me as I sat on the roof. It was like one of those slow motion movies – they arced over the track, landing lightly and trotting away. Completely unbelievable for such a huge animal – I’ll never forget it.

A herd of eland drink in Hwange National Park

Join me in a week for my next story – #WishIHadAPhotoWednesday!
Alison